dual wield good, quadruple wield better

In cartoons, one side character will be way more ethnic than everyone else of the same nationality. For some reason, that candlestick in Beauty and the Beast was more French than every other cast member, who are all French. Uncle Iroh had his actor’s strong Japanese accent, found nowhere else in his family or culture. It doesn’t make sense, until you run into an IRL guy like that. NYC, for example, is incredibly diverse, but there are still people that seem to have been spawned by a procedural New Yorker generator, within whole families and neighborhoods that are not like that at all.

I get the point here. But I am certain that Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts were British immigrants who were simply living in France. What the hell their backstory was that lead them to end up there, I’m not sure.

Yeah, but their coding makes sense. They’re English, and have posh English accents in a setting where everyone but the candlestick is coded with general American accents, as per the movie’s translation convention (apparently Chip’s a native Francophone, which makes sense). The candlestick is the anomaly.

[ID: image of Lumiere from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (an anthropomorphized candelabra). His head and hands (all candles) are lit, and he is smiling with eyebrows raised. End ID.]

You were just joking around. What could it hurt? You thought. All the while your friend pleaded with you “Stop!! Don’t walk through the mushroom circle!!”

You laughed, exaggeratingly dangling your foot above the circle “Oh noooo, are the fairies going to come get me.” You were still laughing as you brought your foot down to meet the earth.

But your mirth ended quickly.

The last things you remember were the soft mossy feel of the ground inside the circle gently cupping your foot (which was odd, because you were wearing shoes.)

And odder still, was that the only other sensation you recall, was the sound of your friend’s ear splitting scream. It sounded like it was coming from impossibly far away, but weren’t they standing right beside you?

And speaking of standing, you realize now that you aren’t. You’re laying flat on your back. On what appears to be some kind of elevated surface, like a table, but the same mossy softness you inexplicably felt on your foot now gently cradles your entire body.

You try to scramble to your feet, but it’s as if the moss is holding you in place.

“Please relax” a voice startles you and your eyes dart to its source: A nearly five and half foot tall mushroom creature in a lab coat stands just a few feet away.

Various mushrooms and plant life bioluminescence as they run their hand like appendages over them. Almost as if they were typing on some sort of machine, but it just looks like oddly shaped fungi and vegetation to you.

“You will be returned to your Reality of Origin as soon as I’ve finished collecting some samples.” They turn briefly to look at you, “typing” on their odd apparatus all the while, adding “you will not be harmed. This is for Science.”

They punctuate the final word with a proud flourish of their labcoat.

“What the hell … What? Samples?” You stammer in your confusion.

“Yes!” The Creature chirped excitedly “Apologies, allow me to introduce myself: I am the Mad Shroomentist (don’t be alarmed, it’s just a title) and I am tasked with studying the genomic precursors to anomalous reality structures, in search of possible preventative measures that could be installed as fail-safes for future realities.”

You stare at them, desperately trying to make sense of their words. Reading the confusion on your face they sigh and continue “You’re from a Hellscape Reality. We’re hoping your blood might contain clues that will prevent other realities from collapsing into [they gesture vaguely in your direction] all that.”

“Hey! It’s not MY fault our reality sucks so bad!!” You retort, understanding enough to be offended by the implication.

They move over to you and smile sadly, for the first time giving you their full attention “Oh no, that’s not what I mean. It’s not your fault, but just by living there it does infect you. And that infection can be used, we hope, to synthesize an antidote.”

“Will that fix our reality?” You ask, hopeful for the first time since this strange encounter began.

“Ohh no, sorry. Your reality is patient 0. It’s not hopeless though! But you have to fix it from the inside. No external force can save you. But you could save each other.”

You sit. Pondering their words, but before the gravity of them can really set in, they go on “And if you do manage to save each other, please come back to your local mushroom circle, because I would love to see what that does to your blood.”

You stare at them. A wordless accusation hangs in the air.

“What?” They balk, defensively “It’s not like you’re really using all of your blood! Whatever. Good luck with your saving the world thing. The Fae Wilds are rooting for you. Your current controllers waste an egregious amount of blood.”

You glare at them and they quickly correct themself “Life! I meant life. That’s the thing that makes the blood and the better the quality of life, the better the quality of the blood. So good blood! I mean luck!”

“I’m really unclear on if you’re helping us or farming us” you begin to ask, but they press a series of mossy rocks next to you and everything begins to fade out before you could get a response.

You come to, standing one foot inside the mushroom circle, your friend screaming in genuine distress right behind you.

You yank your foot out as if it was burning.

“It’s NOT funny!!” They begin to yell, but they trail off as you back away from the circle, clearly distressed and unwilling to let it out of your sight.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Wait, what just happen—” they begin, but you cut them off.

“There’s no time for that now. We have to fix society. And then maybe figure out how to make our blood taste more bitter or, I don’t know, one thing at a time.”

Okay. The Zuko being called a bad boy thing has got to go. It is used so often to invalidate Zutara as a ship (to say that it’s shallow or toxic), but it has to completely mischaracterize Zuko and his entire relationship dynamic with Katara to do so.

He is quite literally a subversion of the bad boy archetype. He is a failure to bad boy by design. His whole characterization from the beginning is that he’s empathetic and cares about others, was punished for it, and goes out of his way to try to be the kind of man his father wants him to be opposite to his true nature. As long as he tries to be this person that he is not, he will suffer for it and fail until he embraces who he is and rejects the notions his father put into his head.

________________________________________________________________

Let’s go over some of the common traits of the bad boy archetype!

• Charisma/Confidence

See Zuko’s complete social awkwardness and inability to talk like a normal person. He’s literally a sputtering mess; he actually gives me second-hand embarrassment.

• Emotional Unavailability/Avoidance

Zuko pretty consistently is empathetic, and especially with Katara is more than comfortable talking about his feelings and pretty personal life issues in an open way. He also is pretty consistent about persistently confronting problems and dealing with them even when it’s an uphill battle. He takes issue with Mai being more shut down and avoidant. He doesn’t ignore problems or run away from them.

• Manipulative

He literally is incapable of being manipulative or deceptive, he’s too forthright; times when he does try to lie, he is shown messing it up spectacularly and being incredibly obvious. If he was more manipulative or used any of his circumstances to make excuses for himself, his life would have been so much easier gaining sympathy with and getting into the group. But he takes the hard way through almost everything he does. He is a blunt instrument and takes the most direct path even if there’s 100 obstacles in his path.

• Mysterious/Unpredictable

LOL Mr. Capture the Avatar Restore My Honor. He’s got literally one thing on his mind and spends the entire show realizing that this narrow path he’s clinging onto around every turn is not the only one.

• Rebellious/Cool

Spends the majority of the show following the path put in front of him. His only true rebellion happens at the end of season 3 where he is arguably at his most “good”, and it’s him rebelling against the worldview put in front of him by someone evil. This is also when he sheds trying to be someone he’s not, and his personality is furthest it’s ever been from being like unto a bad boy.

I’ll cede that his design might be cool, or his abilities- but competence at anything is cool on its own and does not make an individual’s personality cool. He’s a loser; he gets styled on so often for yuks. He’s a dork. His personality is cringefail. He is cringe and he fails at nearly everything he does. It’s great, it’s endearing how uncool he is. He practices talking to himself to hype himself up to talk to the group, says “Hello, Zuko here”, is like “no that’s stupid I gotta say something else”, and then goes up to the group and is like, “Hello, Zuko here.” PLEASE.

• Socially more dominant

My boy sat outside Katara’s tent all night like a wet cat because he cared about her feelings so much, spent the rest of that episode making sure things were taken care of for her, and in general kept trying with her pretty patiently while she was consistently raging at him. He took his lumps from her for a long while. Also, the progression of his facial expressions seeing her to when he finds out she’s mad at him are literally :D -> :c

Also, he’s just constantly being clowned on to the point of utter resignation. He’s very often a character you’re supposed to point and laugh at.

• The whole “fixing him” element, the emotional rollercoaster instability, maladaptive responses to conflict

But Zuko fixed himself. Him coming back and trying to prove himself is all his choice. The appeal of him with Katara is that he balances her out and makes an effort for her all on his own. He knows it’s her choice to forgive him and he doesn’t expect her to; he acts because he wants to and cares.

He is also shown to be stable and safe; she lets herself be mad at him for all manner of other issues because he’s a safe person to be mad at, and he doesn’t feed the flame or run away from the problem. In TSR he is the rock to her storm; he is a consistent, stable counterpart fully determined to show up for her no matter what just for her peace. There is no hot and cold to their dynamic. No emotional dysregulation. They actually help each other process their emotions when they talk about their problems. The appeal is that it’s healthy and reciprocal (and dare I say cute)!

And for the whole “he corrupts Katara” argument I see against him in TSR all the time, look at his dialogue again. He doesn’t once tell her what to do, he just trusts her to make her own decisions… like an autonomous human being… who he respects. He solely backs up the decisions she chooses to make, and makes sure she’s taken care of and safe in the meantime. When she makes a decision contrary to what he expected, he goes along with it. He is just there to be there for her. His only motivation is to get Katara closure and justice on a man who otherwise will never see it and leaves it up to her how she wants to go about it. (In this case, justice was letting him live out the rest of his miserable life.) Is it toxic that he let her make her own decisions regarding her trauma and helped her process her emotions about it, or is it toxic that people act like Katara is incapable of making her own decisions and it must be because a man forced and corrupted her?

I rest my case.

Keep reading

#2, Brute?

[ID: A 3-D printed bust of Julius Caesar in white; there are a number of holes drilled into the back of the bust, and each hole has a pencil stuck into it, as if the pencils were daggers stabbing Julius Caesar on the Ides of March.]

Ah yes, the most important tumblr holiday: the murder of Julius Caesar

ALT

Also younger oligarchs like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg…

Happy Ides of March, folks!

Please support me on Patreon if you like these videos

How TikTok 2.0 Became a Weapon for ICE

Tiktok sitch is just ever worsening. Article w/o paywall, do read it.

[ID: 2 screenshots of text: “By housing TikTok’s data on Oracle’s cloud infrastructure—a firm whose multibillion-dollar existence is owed in part to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement contracts, and whose co-founder Larry Ellison recently bragged about AI ushering in an era where ‘citizens are on their best behavior'—the government has finally achieved its aim of securing the app by integrating it into its domestic surveillance dragnet. Considering the drive to secure TikTok was driven by fears of what the notoriously repressive nation of China might do with our private data, this outcome is, at the very least, highly ironic.

The technical wizardry of this surveillance relies on your Mobile Advertising ID, or MAID, a unique string of alphanumeric characters assigned to every smartphone. Every time an app, be it TikTok or a simple weather tracker, makes a bid to show you an advertisement, if your location services are enabled, it shares both your MAID and your precise GPS coordinates to thousands of private bidders. In the past, this metadata has been used by the Pentagon to identify targets.

Data brokers like Venntel and Babel Street harvest these 'bid-stream’ crumbs into massive, searchable oceans of movement. For ICE, this means they no longer need a wiretap; they can access a digital twin of your life, where your TikTok scrolling habits are pinned to a physical map of your home, workplace, and your child’s school or day care.

The Fourth Amendment nominally requires a warrant and probable cause to search your person or effects. But in the age of surveillance capitalism, the Department of Homeland Security has discovered a loophole: Why bother with a judge when you can just buy the data from a private broker? This is the spending-around strategy. By leveraging data originating from TikTok and similar platforms, ICE no longer needs to infiltrate communities. They simply tap into the flow of data already being harvested by private entities, allowing them to target both the undocumented and the political opposition.” End ID.]

Tumblr every march 15th:

[ID: “Knives Out” surrounded by uncountable knives, all pointed inward at the text. End ID.]

funniest title drop ever

[ID: Title card from Season 4 Episode 21 of Xena: Warrior Princess - The Ides of March.

Gabrielle and Xena are crossing a bridge, and Gabrille is saying “Xena, you can’t just walk into Rome and kill Caesar.”

/ID]

Given the basis of a lot of local zoning blocks of ICE stuff relates to ICE plans to put way more people than they have running water, bedrooms with exterior windows, and toilet facilities I’d argue that this is a rare case of local land-use restriction law actually being used for its intended purpose since those are all the very valid sorts of concerns that created the much-abused system of land use restriction law in the first place

shit shit shit it’s march i forgot to promote this print to yall:

read it carefully lol it’s the callout of Caesar

i should emphasize, I did NOT write the original post, that was done by @heresmyfiddlestick and they get a cut of the sales from these prints.

I’m not sure how to format image IDs when they’re this long so I hope this is right:

[image ID: A sheet of calligraphy print with gold and purple vinework and red daggerlike flowers. In the border there is a torn, purple lined bit of cloth meant to read as a toga and there it begins with a large drop capital F in red. the text reads as follows

Friends, mutuals, countrymen, do not scroll past;

I come to cancel Caesar, not to stan him.

The cringe posts that men make live after them;

The nuance oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was problematic:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–

For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men–

Come I to comment on Caesar’s call-out post.

He was my mutual, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was problematic;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many hot takes to my dash

Whose notifs did the general discourse fill:

Did this in Caesar seem problematic?

When that anons have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Toxicity should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was problematic;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Tumblr Blaze

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this problematic?

Yet Brutus says he was problematic;

And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I speak not to start discourse with Brutus,

But just to provide some context on his call-out post.

You all did stan him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then, to follow him?

/.End ID]

1,080 days left

As much as I love Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Minneapolis,” I think this better captures the zeitgeist of this moment in history.

[ID: Bugs Bunny in tuxedo meme: “Today on ides of march i wish all the people on tumblr a very pleasant stabby stabby time (three sword/knife emojis).” End ID.]

Just remember 60 people signed on to stab Caesar and he only had 23 stab wounds, the real moral of the story is group projects have always just been like that

ALT

stolen off instagram but i laughed so hard when i saw this

[edit: image description written by @womanfredvonkarma ]

req’d by @thequietestlilbucket

stab stab stab

text: Be nice or get the knife

@iamfuckingweeping

[ID: screenshot of Tumblr thread parodying “Smooth Criminal.” @non-binary-bette-davis posted:

You’ve been hit by (knife emoji)
You’ve been struck by (knife emoji)
A Roman Senator (3 knife emojis).

@iamfuckingweeping responded in all caps:

Caeser are you okay
Are you okay Ceaser

End ID.]

Rest in peace ❌ Rest in pieces ✅

[ID: 1950s-style art of a white family. A push lawnmower is lying on the lawn, and a man wiping his brow, labeled “Caesar,” is walking up the sidewalk toward the house’s front door. Behind the opened door a mother (labeled “Tumblr, every goddamn year”) and two children (labeled “The senate” and “Brutus”) are waiting, holding knives. End ID.]

[ID: Oprah pointing to audience on big giveaway day meme. Captions: “Tumblr before the Ides of March: You get a knife! And you get a knife! And you get a knife! And everybody gets a knife!” End ID.]

[ID: Famous painting “The Death of Julius Caesar” by Vincenzo Camuccini, captioned “and then caesar ran into our knives” “julius caesar ran into our knives 23 times.” End ID.]

In honor of the Ides of March, the only minute or two I remember from Surf Ninjas.

Better Homes and Gardens, July 1951

[ID: “Welcome As A Cool Breeze” - image of a sailboat on the water, surrounded by seagulls, behind a close-up on a slice of strawberry pie with a white creamy layer on top.

“Betty Crocker’s Stir-n-roll Refrigerator Pie: A Take-It-Easy Summertime Treat. Cool to look at! Cool to taste! And so easy to make. No cutting in solid shortening, no floury mess with Betty Crocker’s new Stir-n-roll Pastry Method. Just stir together Gold Medal Flour, salt, cold milk, and Wesson Oil, and roll out between waxed paper. That’s all you do! The filling is right out of this hot world! Simply fill the baked pie shell with layers of your favorite berries or fruit, and a luscious marshmallow-cream mixture. Chill in the refrigerator. And, easy as that you’ve got a new, refreshing treat.

Betty Crocker’s Stir-n-roll Refrigerator Pie With a New, Special Marshmallow Creamy Filling:

• Make… 9-in. Stir-n-roll Pie Shell (recipe at right).
• Melt over hot water ½ lb. marshmallows (about 32) in… ½ cup milk. Cool thoroughly, but do not allow to jell. Beat out lumps.
• Fold in… 1 cup heavy cream, whipped; 1 tsp. vanilla; ¼ tsp salt.
• Prepare… 1 ½ cups fruit (any well *drained fruit may be used … fresh, canned or frozen). *Drain canned or frozen fruit very thoroughly.
• Arrange fruit and marshmallow cream mixture in layers in the baked pie shell. Chill in refrigerator at least 1 hour before serving. remove from refrigerator 20 minutes before serving to take chill from crust.

9-In. Stir-n-roll Pie Shell:
Preheat oven to 475 degrees.

1. Mix together… 1 1/3 cups sifted Gold Medal Flour, 1 tsp. salt. [If you use Gold Medal Self-Rising Flour (sold in parts of the South), omit salt in pastry only. Bake in hot oven (425 degrees).] Pour into a measuring cup (but don’t stir together)… 1/3 cup Wesson Oil and … 3 tbsp. cold whole milk. Then pour all at once into flour. Stir lightly until mixed. round up, flatten slightly.
2. Place between 2 sheets of waxed paper (12-in. square). Roll out gently until circle reaches edges of paper. (Waxed paper will not slip while rolling pastry, if table top under paper is slightly damp.) Peel off top paper. If dough cracks or breaks, mend without moistening by pressing edges together … or by pressing a scrap of pastry lightly over tear.
3. Lift paper and pastry by top corners; they will cling together. Place (paper side up) in 9-in. pie pan. Carefully peel off paper. Gently ease and fit pastry into pan. Build up fluted edge. Prick thoroughly with fork to prevent puffing. Bake 8 to 10 minutes (until golden brown) in very hot oven (475 degrees).

3 Easy Steps for Perfect Pie Crust:

1. No cutting in solid shortening! Pour Wesson Oil and cold milk together in measuring cup without stirring. Pour all at once into dry ingredients, stir lightly. [Image of wet ingredients being poured into dry, with Gold Medal Flour sack and Wesson Oil bottle in background.]
2. No messy floured board! Place rounded dough between sheets of waxed paper. Gently roll out circle of dough to edges of paper. Peel off top sheet. [Image of rolling pin over waxed paper over oval of dough.]
3. Dough isn’t sticky! So easy to handle! Hold paper over pan. Dough clings until you gently loosen it into pan. Build up fluted edge. [Image of hands peeling dough off paper and into glass pie pan.]

Gold Medal Flour and Betty Crocker Recipes are tailor-made for each other: Depend on Gold Medal! Its superb baking qualities never vary! Each sack always acts the same to help assure success with all your bakings! Start with your flour! Betty Crocker developed the recipe for this ‘Take-It-Easy’ summertime treat to take full advantage of Gold Medal 'Kitchen-tested’ Enriched Flour. [Image of General Mills logo flag. Image of sack of General Mills Gold Medal 'Kitchen-tested’ Enriched Flour.] It must be better… women buy more sacks of Gold Medal Flour than the next 5 brands combined. 'Betty Crocker’ and 'Kitchen-tested’ are reg. trade marks of General Mills, Inc.” End ID.]

Off the back of my post about my mom’s lack of seasonings in Thanksgiving sides, I figured I’d show I’m breaking the cycle by sharing my pumpkin pie recipe. If you make this, I’d love to hear about it!! Feel free to reblog as well

Alchem’s Pumpkin Pie:

ALT

15 oz (1 can) pumpkin puree

14 oz (1 can) sweetened condensed milk

2 eggs

¼ tsp nutmeg

1 tsp ginger

1/8 tsp allspice

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

1 ½ tbsp maple syrup

¼ tsp cloves

½ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 425°F

Whisk everything together in bowl, adjust spices to taste

Pour into chilled pie crust in a greased pan (pre-baking crust advised, but optional)

Bake pie at 425°F for 15 minutes

Reduce oven temp to 350°F and continue to bake for 35-40 mins. When you can stick in a knife and it comes out clean, it’s done

Cool completely before eating, and enjoy!

Additional notes:

-Spice blend by me, but bake times are from this recipe: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/23439/perfect-pumpkin-pie/

-My favorite crust recipe here (I recommend making it by hand rather than with a food processor, and be sure to keep everything as cold as possible at all times): https://www.inspiredtaste.net/22662/flaky-pie-crust-recipe/

-If you want homemade whipped cream, you can use and electric mixer to whisk a pint of heavy cream with ten tablespoons of sugar and a teaspoon or two of vanilla until peaks form

-If you’re making this with fresh pumpkin, you should only need one pie pumpkin. Be sure to get one intended for baking

-Baking can be tricky. Take deep breaths, and enjoy the ride of building a new skill. It might not be perfect the first time, or the second, but there’s no rush. You’ve got this

Happy baking!

[ID: “3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197… Happy National #PiDay!” Photo of Count Von Count with a fruit pie on Sesame Street. Social post from Sesame Street (@sesamestreet). End ID.]

🍏🥧apple pie🥧🍏 i made this for an eid party

9 inch pie crust

8 small granny smith apples, peeled cored and sliced

½ c butter

3 tbsp flour

¼ c water

½ c white sugar

½ c brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

*approaching a trio*

so who’s friday the 13th, who’s pi day, and who’s the ides of march

Oh, I’ve got the ATLA version:

Friday the 13th: Azula. Terrifying killing machine when she chooses to be.

Pi Day: Ty Lee. Cute, quirky. She totally got Mai a fruit tart to enjoy as part of the celebration.

Ides of March: Mai. Stabbing, specifically stabbing, specifically as part of a group.